Bear Goes Joyriding in Family's Prius (VIDEO)

Unlike most, the McCarthy family from California actually has some vacation pictures and a story that someone else may find interesting. While they were sleeping at their Lake Tahoe cabin, they heard the horn of their Toyota Prius start honking. Roused from a deep sleep, they saw a bunch of activity going on inside the vehicle with "fuzzy arms flailing," and heard grunting noises coming from it. Shortly thereafter, their car was gone.

No it wasn't a bunch of crazy hairy thieves or wild teenagers out looking for a ride, but rather a black bear who somehow entered and got stuck in the car. At some point during his adventure, he put the car into drive and off he went down the family's driveway, across a street, and finally into a neighbor's deck. He only traveled less than 80 feet in all, but the damage he did during his adventure was massive. Here the family talks about how the bear pretty much ate the entire car.

Advertisement

That car is completely totaled. I know bears are fierce, but that's incredible. “It totally ripped every recognizable piece of the interior out,” their son Dylan McCarthy told the Sierra Sun. “It was not even recognizable as a vehicle.”

The poor bear must have been terrified. At that hour in the morning, it was likely too dark for anyone to see, but can you imagine seeing a bear in a car driving past you? When the car finally rolled to a stop, a door must have popped open and the bear made a clean getaway, because by the time police arrived, they found only the shell of the car. While police labeled the incident a crime, there is no warrant for the bear's arrest.

The family says there was no food in the car at the time, it was completely closed up, and they have no idea how he got in there in the first place. In any case, if this story isn't a "beary" (sorry) good reminder to always lock your car doors, I don't know what is.